Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Has It Really Been Two Years?

It's always a treat to visit with my cousin even if the music would not be my first choice. And it was even more fun being joined by twosisters, a brother-in-law, and nephew, and some friends!

As for the show itself, this was my favourite set from them so far, perhaps because of its relatively acoustic nature. In my geezerdom incredibly loud music, flashing lights, and a lot of screaming, just don't have the appeal they once had. No wait - in that sense I have always been a geezer. I think that growing up watching newsreels of the Nuremberg rallies have ruined rock concerts for me forever. We had a couple of real zealots in front of us, standing through most of the show - brought to mind this excellent and short description of how to apply the Coase theorem to this sort of a problem. In this case, they performed a service by being pretty cute and blocking my view of the lead singer. In any case, the two young ladies were as blissed out as any of Hitler's fans from the newsreels.

I cannot tell which songs are actually THEIR songs rather than covers, unless they are covers I recognize, which can be tricky, as it is hard to make out the words (I get curmudgeonly about diction from singers too), and they have a tendency to do rather eccentric covers - it took a while to realize it was "Thunder Road" when the parts Springsteen did with exuberance and energy were restrained and slowed down somewhat. On the other hand, the cover (did it end the show? - it was exuberant and excellent) of Dylan's "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" got me very engaged.

If they keep moving in this direction I might start enjoying the shows as much as I recall liking the Camper van Beethoven concerts that used to cause his visits.